Gerald Dyck (left) of MDS meets with residents of the burned-out town of Lytton, B.C. (Photo by Mark Rempel)
While Lytton, B.C., struggles to recover from a devastating fire that destroyed most of the small, remote village in June 2021, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) stands ready to help.
Seasonal farm workers at The Farmworkers Hub in Virgil, Ontario. (Supplied photo)
The May 4 issue of Canadian Mennonite stated that “Niagara United Mennonite Church in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, will use a grant of $5,000 to build a laundry facility for seasonal workers who come to the area each year from Jamaica and Mexico to work on local farms.”
Volunteers work on repairing the roof of a hurricane damaged home on Cape Breton Island. (Photo courtesy of Heather Wiebe)
Volunteers, crew and staff of the MDS Cape Breton project. (Photo courtesy of Heather Wiebe)
With suitcases full of work clothes and spirits full of enthusiasm, 13 people from Mount Royal Mennonite Church in Saskatoon traveled to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The group served together on the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) project to rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Fiona in 2022.
Sydney River Protestant United Church in Sydney, Nova Scotia. (Supplied Photo)
“Everyone is excited—there’s a buzz in the air.”
That’s what Dana Feltmate, the minister at Sydney River Protestant United Church in Sydney, Nova Scotia, said about hosting the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) response to Hurricane Fiona in Cape Breton.
Although thousands of fallen trees were cleaned up by Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers after Hurricane Fiona struck the Maritimes last fall, and some roofs were patched or tarped, the organization was unable to do more before winter came.
Many live in what are called “company homes,” houses built many years ago by coal companies in the region and passed down through families after the mines closed. Although the mines are gone, the people remain. Those who depend on pensions are struggling to make ends meet, while others face unemployment.
MDS volunteer Frank Guenther works on Johnny Parson’s house in Glace Bay, N.S. (Photo by John Longhurst)
As hurricanes go, Fiona wasn’t as bad as some when it hit Atlantic Canada—just lots of trees blown down into yards, and shingles and siding blown off houses.
Unless it was your tree, your yard or your roof and siding. Then it was a very big deal.
That’s how Nick Hamm sees it.
Volunteers from Bethel Mennonite Church in Waterville, N.S., drove three-and-a-half hours to Antigonish, to cut down fallen trees in the coastal town of 4,300 in the northeast part of the province. (Photo by Shannon Long)
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada began cleanup work in Antigonish, N.S., on Sept. 30 in response to Hurricane Fiona.
That’s when volunteers from the Bethel Mennonite Church in Waterville, N.S., about a three-and-a-half hour drive from Antigonish, arrived to start cutting down fallen trees in the coastal town of 4,300 in the northeast part of the province.
A damaged home in Emmalena, Ky. (Photo courtesy of MDS)
Flood survivors in hard-hit eastern Kentucky need volunteers—and Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) is trying to help.
“The need is overwhelming,” said Larry Stoner, MDS regional operations coordinator, describing the aftermath of the historic deluge in late July that killed 38 people in a rural corner of the state.
Dustan and Tammy Eager with their son Thomas at the site of their new home in Monte Lake, B.C. (Photo by John Longhurst)
Dustan Eager was home alone when the knock on the door came at 2 a.m. It was Aug. 4, 2021, and someone from emergency services was there, telling him to get ready to leave his home in Monte Lake, B.C. because of the encroaching fire.
A leader and camper at the Urban Promise camp in Toronto, made possible with support from the Spirit of MDS Fund. (Photo courtesy of Urban Promise)
Meals and blankets for homeless people, helping low-income kids go to camp, support for refugees—these are some of the ways the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund helped Canadian congregations and organizations serve their communities.
MDS volunteer Mike Davis, left, presents the repaired banjo to Wesley Emmelot. (MDS Canada photo)
Wesley Emmelot and his wife, Maureen Parsley, lost almost everything when the Tulameen River overflowed its banks in the town of Princeton, B.C., in mid-November 2021.
“There was a foot of water in the house, and the basement was filled with water and mud,” Emmelot said.
Marc, Carole, Marie-Ange and Jean-Dominique Jobin are pictured in Carole and Marie-Ange’s temporary quarters while MDS partners with the Knights of Columbus to build a medically sterile and temperature-controlled addition to their home in Barry’s Bay, Ont. (Photo by Osiah Horst)
A family separated by illness is being reunited through the joint efforts of the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Ontario Unit and the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus.
Alvin Klassen, Keith Rudance and Joy Dougans take a load to the dump in Princeton. Read about the efforts of Mennonite Disaster Service to help clean up the town in December, a month after severe flooding and mudslides wreaked havoc in British Columbia. (Photo by John Longhurst)
As part of the clean-up in Princeton, B.C., Mennonite Disaster Service volunteer Alvin Klassen emerges from a basement with a damaged chair.(Photo by John Longhurst)
Joy Dougans, left, Alvin Klassen, right, and Keith Rudance, in the back, discuss their next move in the cleanup operations. (Photo by John Longhurst)
The MDS trailer parked in Princeton, B.C. (Photo by John Longhurst)
A sign in Princeton, B.C., lists the locations where the water is contaminated and should not be consumed. (Photo by John Longhurst)
“The Mennonites are coming!”
That was the buzz around the town of Princeton, B.C., in early December 2021, when the first 16 Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers arrived to help residents hard hit by flooding in mid-November.
People in the town are “so exhausted,” said Spencer Coyne, Princeton’s mayor. But knowing help was arriving put “a glimmer of hope in their eyes.”
A home in Princeton, B.C., with damaged possessions piled outside. (Photo by Ross Penner)
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada is calling for volunteers to help with cleaning out homes in Princeton, B.C. following the catastrophic flood that hit the town in mid-November.
Around 20 volunteers are needed by Dec. 6 to help people in that interior community clean out their flooded homes.
Winnipeg, MB—Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) is monitoring the situation in British Columbia, where torrential rains have caused flooding and mudslides that have affected many communities and residents. With the water still yet to recede, and some communities still cut off from access due to damaged or destroyed roads and bridges, "it’s too early to be doing any kind of assessment on what we can do,” Ross Penner, who directs Canadian operations, said in a news release yesterday.
Donated hay about to be loaded in Ontario for farmers in Saskatchewan. (Photo by Lester Weber)
For Bradley and Virginia Walker, livestock farmers in Endeavour, Sask., this year’s weather was a disaster.
“The rain was so patchy,” says Bradley. “Some places got good rain; we got nothing.”
The lack of rain meant they couldn’t grow enough hay to feed the 350 head of cattle on their organic beef farm.
After a successful first two rounds of funding, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada is once again offering its Spirit of MDS Fund to Canadian congregations.
Created in response to COVID-19, the Fund provided a total of 81 grants worth $206,900 in 2020-21 to help congregations and other organizations respond to needs in their communities due to the pandemic.
Bonnie and Dan Lapointe in front of cut-up trees from their yard after a September windstorm along the eastern shore of Lake Huron. (MDS Ontario photo by Lester Weber)
When Bonnie Lapointe saw the damage caused by the severe windstorm that struck her southwestern Ontario property on Sept. 7, she cried.
“I had never seen anything like that,” she said of all the fallen trees that littered her small acreage near Kingsbridge along the shores of Lake Huron. “Some of those trees were over 200 years old.”
Ron Guenther, MDS’s director of operations, right, presents a quilt to Misty Minshew and her son on May 20 during a dedication service for the last 13 homes in the Tierra de Esperanza, or “Land of Hope,” community in Woodsboro, Texas, four years after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the area. (MDS photo by Paul Hunt)
Don Horst, MDS’s project director, does some final touches to a home in the Tierra de Esperanza, or “Land of Hope,” community in Woodsboro, Texas, four years after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on the area. (MDS photo by Paul Hunt)
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) and Disaster Aid Ohio, in partnership with the Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group, dedicated the last 13 homes in the Tierra de Esperanza, or “Land of Hope,” community in Woodsboro, Texas, on May 20, bringing to completion an unprecedented three-year effort.
Pastor Gerald Neufeld (back row in the green long-sleeved shirt) and some of the members of the Mennonite Japanese Christian Fellowship in Surrey, B.C. (Mennonite Japanese Christian Fellowship website photo)
One month after its launch on Feb. 1, the 2021 Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund approved $54,900 in grants for 24 Canadian congregations and church-related organizations.
Bob Ratelle does cleanup in the kitchen at Scott St. Church in St. Catharines, Ont., after making meals made possible by support from the MDS Canada Spirit of MDS Fund. (MDS photo)
After a successful first year, Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada has announced a new round of funding from its Spirit of MDS Fund.
The 2021 round of funding started Jan. 31 and runs to April 30. It will provide grants up to $2,500 to Canadian Anabaptist/Mennonite congregations.
Pictured from left to right: Grace Ho, Lauren Kong, Michelle Quan and Christen Kong work in the community garden begun by the outreach team of Toronto Chinese Mennonite Church. The garden became a place of healing and connection in the community. (Photo by Sandy Yuen)
Christen Kong, 27, was part of the community outreach team at Toronto Chinese Mennonite Church when the group started a local butterfly garden to encourage pollinators. Kong marvels at how that small garden project became a “community connector” and a place of healing and wholeness.
The Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund is issuing a second call for applications from churches in Canada.
Twenty Mennonite Church Canada congregations are among the first 40 churches that have received grants from the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada Spirit of MDS Fund.
The fund was created by MDS Canada in April to help Canadian churches respond to people in their communities facing hardship due to COVID-19.
Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) Canada’s operations may be suspended until fall due to the pandemic, but the organization still wants to be active in responding to COVID-19. To do that, the organization has created The Spirit of MDS Fund to help Canadian churches respond to people in their communities facing hardship due to the virus. Through the $100,000 fund, which received unanimous support from the MDS Canada board at its April 15 meeting, Canadian congregations can apply for grants of up to $1,000 to help with various COVID-19-related needs.
